Mother Charged In Son`s Death

August 28, 1991|By Edmund S. Tijerina.

A South Side woman and her boyfriend were charged Tuesday night in connection with the death of her 3-year-old son.

Lisa Wright, 29, of 444 S. State St. was charged with child neglect and her boyfriend, Kerwin Daniels, 31, of the same address, was charged with murder, authorities said. Judge Michael Boland set bail for each of them at $200,000, said a court clerk.

Police refused to discuss the circumstances of the arrests.

Michael Wright died Aug. 12. His younger sister, 23-month-old Crystal Daniels, died June 24 after falling from an apartment window. The fall had been ruled an accident by authorities. After Michael`s death, police reopened their investigation of Crystal`s death.

Police said Michael suffered third-degree burns on his left eye, bottocks and hips. His left lung also may have been punctured, officials said. Spokesman Andy Knott of the Cook County state`s attorney`s office has said that Chicago Osteopathic Hospital, where the boy died, found that Michael had died of gangrene.

The Cook County medical examiner`s office has not determined a cause of death, and the case is still under investigation, a spokesman said.

Lisa Wright had told police she left the boy in Daniels` care early in the morning and came back in the afternoon to find the boy naked and her boyfriend gone from the apartment at the Chicago Housing Authority`s Robert Taylor Homes. She later told police that she returned to find Michael running around playing but that he began to vomit.

Michael was born addicted to cocaine and had been under the supervision of the state Department of Children and Family Services, along with his sister, Iesha, and a brother, Darryl, officials said. The agency and the Cook County public guardian took the three children from the mother in 1988 and placed them in their grandmother`s care, returning them in May, officials said.